Aside from some blown out areas from the direct sunlight, any suggestions on what I could do differently? Is my reflection in his eyes distracting and if so, how would I go about fixing that? Is this a good use of curves or overdone or...just any feedback would be helpful..first time messing with curves.

I like your conversion here, and in the conversion it is no longer as apparent as in the colour photo that you can be seen in his eyes. It is fairly distracting in the colour version, though, since he has a whole landscape reflected there. You played nicely with the curves (those in Photoshop! ), the hot spot on his nose is gone and the shadows are flattened, which works fine with his dark, expressive eyes. And all that is reflected in them is no longer of any importance, it only adds to their liveliness, if this can be said like that!?